


Christmas Day, Take Two

by Yavannie



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Presents, Christmas Tree, Crack, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, It's A Christmas Fic OK, M/M, Underage Eggnog Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 22:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13133451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yavannie/pseuds/Yavannie
Summary: “I hate the thought of you alone at Christmas.”The words take on a muffled, rumbling quality seeing as he’s currently using her belly for a pillow, but he can hear Betty’s tone all the same; how she’s prodding, questioning, testing the waters.“Ilovethe thought of me alone at Christmas,” says Jughead firmly.Or, Christmascompletelynot as it went down in canon.





	Christmas Day, Take Two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nimmieamee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimmieamee/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, nimmieamee!

On Christmas Day, they wake before sunrise. There’s a certain eerie quietness to the morning, and a quick glance out the window confirms Jughead’s suspicions - it’s snowing. It’s as good an excuse as any to snuggle back down under the covers for another few minutes. Not that _he’s_ going anywhere.

“I hate the thought of you alone at Christmas.”

The words take on a muffled, rumbling quality seeing as he’s currently using her belly for a pillow, but he can hear Betty’s tone all the same; how she’s prodding, questioning, testing the waters.

“I _love_ the thought of me alone at Christmas,” says Jughead firmly.

Betty sighs and threads her fingers through his hair lazily. “But, like,” she begins, and since she can’t see his face, he takes the opportunity to give a most heartfelt roll of his eyes. “Is it because my parents are going to be there, or…”

“Think of it as a second birthday,” he interrupts her. “Multiplied by ten. That should give you some kind of idea of how much I loathe Christmas. Honestly. _Nothing_ will make me happier than not getting out of these pajamas all day and just watching _Die Hard_ on repeat. Just… take my word for it.”

Her fingers drum thoughtfully across his forehead. Then she clears her throat. “I can think of one thing that would make you happier than not getting out of those pajamas.”

By the time she waves him goodbye, hair still wet from the shower and cheeks blossoming, the sun is well up somewhere behind the clouds. At least partially true to his word, Jughead turns on _Die Hard_ , then gets dressed and goes about giving the trailer its weekly clean. When the credits roll, he starts the movie again and settles with his laptop in the couch. He stares at the last paragraph he wrote, suppressing a yawn. He writes a sentence or two, then yawns again. As Bruce Willis goes into the restroom to get changed, he shuts the lid to the computer and lets his eyes drop closed. Just for a minute, he thinks.

It’s already dark again when he’s woken up by an insistent, rapid knocking on the door.

“Wh–” he says, stumbling to his feet.

His back is sore and his neck creaks in protest, and he rubs it while he fumbles around for his beanie in the darkness. There’s the knocking again now, even more urgent.

“Just a sec!” he yells, then remembers that such novelties as lamps exist and turns one on.

The hat is next to the TV, and he crams it on before walking stiffly over to open the door. In the few seconds it takes him, he tries to guess who it might be, but his sleep-addled brain has got nothing. He turns the handle and– _Oh_. _Okay_. He would not have guessed. Not in a million years.

“What took you so long?” says Cheryl, digging her eyes into him accusingly.

“I was asleep,” he says. For once, being honest about his irregular sleeping patterns might actually prove useful. “I was _enjoying_ being asleep.”

Cheryl, however, is undeterred. “But it’s Christmas!”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Well don’t just stand there. Invite me in!”

He frowns at her. “What are you, a vampire?”

“Oh, please,” she says, pushing past him. “A penchant for red, and immortal beauty - that’s where the similarities end. I might as well be Santa Claus.”

Behind her trails a huge, red velvet sack that may very well belong to a burlesque Santa Claus. It chinks and rustles as she drags it across the floor before dumping it unceremoniously on the couch. It sits in his favorite spot, Jughead notes. Cheryl takes a lap of the room, scanning the walls and the furniture with a mild look of distaste on her face.

“Alone on Christmas?” she tuts. “That’s appropriately tragic, I suppose. Where’s Betty? Don’t tell me you broke up again.”

He refuses to let her rile him up and simply asks calmly, “What are you doing here, Cheryl?”

She looks offended at that and flicks her coppery curls over her shoulder. Then she walks over to the sack on the couch and pulls a length of red tinsel from it. Experimentally, she drapes it over Big Mouth Billy Bass, then stands back to admire her work.

“My mother disapproved of me buying decorations,” she says blithely. “She requested that I quote unquote ‘address the issue’.”

Jughead considers pinching himself, because this truly is the stuff of nightmares. “By, what, decorating my trailer?” he asks.

“Your father’s trailer,” she corrects him. “I can’t think of anything mother would like less than to see the home of Jason’s tormentor, covered in Blossom-bought bling. Even if he’s away on whatever it is you deadbeats count as business.”

“Meanwhile Mrs. Blossom is hard at work, right?” he fires back.

She snaps her head around, glaring at him. “Oh, you have _no_ idea,” she hisses, then proceeds to violently rummage through the velvet bag, pulling out garlands, baubles, stars and miniature reindeer, all in different shades of red.

“Cheryl–” he starts, but just then someone else pounds at the door.

This time he doesn’t have to guess before opening. There’s only one person who makes it his personal mission in life to attempt to punch an actual hole in the trailer whenever he comes around to visit.

“What’s up, Sweet Pea,” says Jughead.

“Did you know there’s a tree outside?” Sweet Pea says angrily.

Jughead eyes him suspiciously, looking for signs of recent head injury. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “That’s where they generally hang out. Trees. You know, outside.”

“A Christmas tree!” Sweet Pea says, pointing down the stairs.

Jughead pokes his head out, and sure enough, there’s a fine looking spruce, leaning against the side of the trailer. Then Cheryl worms her way under his arm, peeking out in front of him.

“A Christmas miracle,” she says happily. She snaps her fingers at Sweet Pea. “You, Tall Boy, get that inside.”

“No, don’t call him that, it’s going to get confusing,” Jughead groans as Cheryl shoves him aside to help Sweet Pea maneuver the tree through the door.

Ten minutes later, Cheryl is standing on the living room table, barking orders at Sweet Pea, who on account of being tall has been charged with decorating the top of the tree. Jughead is perched on the armrest of the sofa, trying to decide if running away from his own home until this insanity is over is worth the trouble or not, when the doorbell rings.

Until now, he has been unaware that they even _have_ a doorbell.

“ _Feliz Navidad_ , _Torombolo_ ,” says Veronica, flashing him a winning smile as he opens the door.

“Betty’s not here,” he says. “Or Archie, if you were looking for him.”

“I wasn’t. But my Saint Laurent Loulou Booties are looking for somewhere that isn’t cold and wet, so if you wouldn’t mind…”

And before he knows it, Cheryl and Veronica are sitting at the kitchen table, both with their legs primly crossed, lamenting the damage snow does to suede.

Sweet Pea comes to stand next to Jughead. “What are they _doing_ here?” he asks in a hushed voice. He’s wearing a crown of tinsel and there’s a bauble hanging from his belt.

“Cheryl I _think_ is trying to piss of her mom. As for the Princess of Palace Pembrooke, I have no idea.”

“Oh, there’s presents in the bag,” says Veronica, evidently having overheard their exchange. She motions at a gym bag by the door.

“Who are they for?” Jughead asks.

“Anyone more worthy of them than my parents,” Veronica says, then feigns thinking hard, furrowing her brow and tapping her lips with a finger. “I guess that means literally anyone!” she declares cheerfully and turns back to Cheryl.

Jughead and Sweet Pea move over to the bag, and Jughead unzips is carefully. Inside, there are a number of lavishly wrapped gift boxes. He shrugs at Sweet Pea, and then someone knocks on the door. Again.

This time it’s Toni, with snow in her pigtails and a tired look on her face.

“Hey guys,” she says. She’s got her backpack slung over one shoulder, which generally only means one thing.

“He didn’t,” says Sweet Pea, quietly fuming. “Not on _Christmas_.”

“He sure did,” says Toni. “But guess what, I swiped all the eggnog on my way out.” She holds out two bottles of Old Tom’s and shakes them with a lopsided smile.

“Did someone say eggnog?” Veronica calls from inside.

Everyone has eggnog except for Jughead, who considers just having a meltdown instead. Before he can get that far, though, there’s another knock on the door.

“What the hell is this?” he says to no one in particular. “The opening scene from the freaking _Hobbit_?”

Next to Cheryl, Josie McCoy would have ranked in the absolute top of the list of people Jughead would never have expected to see outside his trailer on Christmas Day. Yet there she is.

“Merry Christmas, Jughead,” she says.

“Merry Christmas,” he replies automatically. Possibly, it’s the first time they’ve ever spoken.

“Is Cheryl here?” she asks. “My mom is going _crazy_. My curfew was at noon, and I’m desperate for somewhere to hang out that _isn’t_ my bedroom. Somewhere she won’t think to look.”

By now, the other guests are crowding behind Jughead, curiously looking over his shoulder to see who it is.

“Did you bring anything?” asks Sweet Pea.

“Yeah, everyone else brought something,” says Veronica.

“Food?” says Jughead hopefully, then kicks himself mentally for getting temporarily carried away with this circus.

“I’ve got my... angelic voice?” says Josie with a hopeful smile.

“Come on in,” says Jughead, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly.

While Veronica pours Josie a glass of eggnog, Sweet Pea rummages around inside the closet until he finds FP’s old guitar, then starts tuning it. Jughead sinks down on a chair by the kitchen table, absentmindedly picks an iced gingerbread man from a tray and nibbles at it. At this point, he no longer asks himself how, when or why the tray appeared there. Josie requests ‘O Holy Night’, and to Jughead’s intense relief Sweet Pea doesn’t know it, because that would have been on a whole other level of weird. When Josie hums it, though, he picks out the chords easily enough until he can strum it to her satisfaction.

“Cheryl? Veronica?” says Josie. “Can I call upon your feline powers to back me up, even on Christmas Day?”

“I’m always ready to provide purr-fect harmonies,” says Veronica.

“You know I’m forever your kitten, Josie, but I’m afraid the upper part of my register has temporarily given out after screaming at the top of my lungs for five solid minutes this morning,” says Cheryl with an apologetic smile.

“Toni can sing,” says Sweet Pea.

Toni’s eyes widen. “Sweets, no,” she says warningly.

But as it turns out, Toni _can_ sing. Of course she can, and her voice mingles with Veronica’s and Josie’s in a rendition of the hymn that makes Jughead’s heart ache in a joyous kind of way, despite it being a carol, despite it being Christmas, and despite Jughead being Jughead. During the last verse he has to retreat to the bathroom; his nose is suddenly very runny with some kind of winter cold. Once he comes back out, Toni is wearing a pair of tinsel cat ears, and the doorbell sounds again.

It’s Fangs and - perhaps the third least expected visitor of the evening - Joaquin, who celebrated with his family on Christmas Eve and has spent the day traveling from San Junipero. Jughead can’t even pretend to be annoyed to see them, because Fangs has brought the leftovers from his grandmother’s Christmas dinner.

“Mimsy figured you’d be hungry,” says Fangs as he carries an enormous pot of mashed potatoes from the car.

“Your Mimsy knows me too well,” says Jughead, trailing after him, balancing bowls of stuffing, cranberry sauce and pigs in blankets.

Extra seating is brought in from some hitherto unknown stack of folding chairs under the bed, a pack of disposable plates are unearthed from a kitchen cupboard and on the top shelf Sweet Pea finds a large number of beer glasses of the kind that sometimes come free when you buy booze in bulk. Perched on Fangs’ shoulders, Josie hangs fairy lights from corner to corner of the ceiling while Toni, Veronica and Joaquin fashion paper crowns from leaflets advertising Christmas specials at Pop's. Soon, they're all squeezed in around the table, eyeing the dishes eagerly.

“Before we start,” says Joaquin, raising a hand.

“In this home we do _not_ say grace,” says Jughead, determined to put his foot down about this at least.

“No-o,” says Joaquin. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out several thin stick-looking things.

Jughead’s eyes harden. “And we most definitely do not do any goddamn Jingle-Jangle.”

“What the hell is Jingle-Jangle?” says Joaquin with a frown, passing the sticks down the table. “Turn the lights off, will you Sweet Pea?”

Jughead is handed a stick by Toni, and he stares at it. It’s a sparkler. Joaquin lights his first, then slides his lighter to his right, where Veronica is sitting. One after another, the miniature fireworks start crackling merrily. Cheryl draws a couple of cherries in the air, while Fangs attempts to write out his entire name before the first letter fades back into darkness. Jughead pockets his sparkler; he can’t bring himself to lighting it, not yet.

Once the lights are back on, Jughead finds everyone looking expectantly at him, and he realizes he’s the actual host here.

“Uh, tuck in,” he says and motions at the food, setting off a hurried clattering of cutlery, glasses and bottles.

“Sorry there’s no turkey, but Bobo wouldn't let me take it,” says Fangs. “Bobo loves his turkey sandwiches.”

Just then, there’s another knock on the door. Jughead’s stomach protests loudly at him getting up to answer it, but is more than mollified once he swings it open. Betty and Kevin are standing outside. Kevin is waving a sprig of mistletoe happily, and Betty... Betty is carrying an entire roast turkey on a tray.

“Betty,” Jughead says, his heart beating a little harder at the sight of her, but also at the sight of the turkey. “Is that the Cooper turkey? What happened?”

“The usual,” she says, rolling her eyes. “First, dad insisted on carving the turkey because apparently it’s his right as the man of the house, so mom told him the house would do perfectly well if not better without a man like dad in it and that besides, dad doesn’t know the first thing about carving anything or anyone, which frankly was a terrifying statement to make, even for mom. Anyway, just as _she_ was about to start carving the thing, Polly found out the turkey was actually Freddie the Fowl from the farm, one of three turkeys she’s been feeding daily. So she started yelling about bird-murder until she got heartburn from indigestion, and since no one seemed interested in carving _or_ eating the turkey anymore I figured I might as well bring it over here.”

“Okay,” says Jughead, a little stunned, standing aside to let them in. “Like you said, the usual. What about you, Kevin?”

“Dinner was canceled last minute,” he says. “Dad got called in on a missing person’s case.”

“That would be me,” says Josie meekly, raising a hand.

“Well, isn’t this cozy,” says Kevin, rubbing his hands together, looking around at the gathered guests. Then he freezes, and Jughead doesn’t have to follow his gaze to understand why.

“Preppy,” Joaquin says softly, getting to his feet.

The kitchen falls perfectly silent as Joaquin walks up to Kevin. Kevin stares at Joaquin, then at the mistletoe in his hand. Slowly, he raises it above their heads, gazing longingly at his long-lost lover, who only waits half second to throw himself at Kevin so eagerly that the mistletoe goes flying through the air as they stumble backwards and out of the trailer, presumably on a mission to make miraculous Christmas love through the night.

When Jughead goes to close the door behind them, he bumps right into Archie. Jughead gives a little sigh of relief as something inside him clicks contentedly. Archie is the final guest of the evening. He knows this with absolute certainty, because he knows with absolute certainty that he will refuse to open the door for anyone else until he’s had some food.

“Merry Christmas, Archie,” he says.

“Merry Christmas, Jug,” says Archie, shrugging out of his jacket. “Did you get the tree?”

Jughead should have known it was from Archie. He nods at the Christmas tree. “Barely recognizable post Cherylization, but yes.”

“Hey!” says Sweet Pea, standing up. “I brought that tree in!”

“Uh, okay, but I actually had it sent here,” says Archie, crossing his arms with a frown.

“Finders keepers,” says Sweet Pea, stepping closer to Archie. “It’s _my_ tree.”

“I picked out that tree specially for Jughead,” says Archie, drawing himself up.

“I adjusted the stand!”

“I made sure it had a fresh cut!”

“I _decorated_ that tree!” says Sweet Pea, banging his fist down on the counter.

“For god’s sake can we please just eat!” yells Jughead.

 

* * *

 

Some time later, when they’re all uncomfortably full, and Betty has hidden the guitar from Archie for the fourth time, Veronica suggests they play a gift exchange game with the presents she brought from the Pembrooke.

“The game works like this,” she says, upending the gym bag on the living room table. “In round one, we take turns to throw a die for the gifts. Anyone who gets a six can pick a gift, and we keep going until we’re out of presents.”

They start the game, and with Jughead’s usual luck, he doesn’t throw a single six. By the end of the round, Fangs and Veronica haven’t got any gifts either, but the others have one or two each. The exception is Cheryl who has a pile of five.

“Time to open?” says Cheryl, clapping her hands excitedly.

“No,” says Veronica. “Now we _play_.”

In the second round of the game, Veronica sets an egg timer to a secret number of minutes. Then they throw the die again. This time, a six lets you steal a gift from someone else, while a one means you have to pass a gift along to the person on your left.

Jughead rolls a six on the first try. He immediately grabs the biggest, most lavish looking box from Cheryl's stash.

“What did I ever do to you, Eeyore?” she says, a look of shock on her face.

“Apart from calling me every vile nickname in the book until you had to start recycling them?” he says, smirking. “For one, you were the one who started all _this_.” He waves vaguely at the decorations, the tree, the leftovers of the leftovers. “You only have yourself to blame, Cheryl.”

By the end of the first minute, Cheryl has no gifts left. Jughead has three. Now, the game is truly on. Archie tries to cling to the single gift he had from the first round, but is forced to pass it to Fangs when he rolls a one. Next time the die comes around, he manages to get it back, only to immediately have it snatched up by Cheryl, who grabs at whatever’s nearest just to have _something_. One enticingly star-shaped present changes hands every other time someone rolls a six. A while into the game, a north-south divide can be gleaned, where gifts are stolen only from residents from the other side of the tracks, until Toni in a shocking display of betrayal grabs the star-shaped box from Sweet Pea. After that, only the law of the jungle applies.

When the egg timer goes off, the gifts are relatively evenly distributed, and only Sweet Pea sits empty-handed. Veronica subtly slides the gift she’s holding his way.

“I was never planning on keeping any,” she says.

“Well this was dreadfully disappointing,” says Cheryl, who has just unwrapped the star-shaped box, revealing a small, three-pronged fork. “I’m allergic to oysters.”

“You’re not meant to open them now!” Veronica scolds her.

“But there’s nothing else to _do_ in this dump!” says Cheryl.

“Come on, Ginger Spice,” says Toni to Cheryl. “If you’re that pressed for entertainment you can help me with the dishes.”

Cheryl gapes at her, saying nothing, presumably stunned into silence by this outrageous suggestion, but much to everyone’s surprise, she hurriedly follows Toni into the kitchen.

“Board game, anyone?” says Archie, eyeing the meagre stack in the closet.

“I should head home,” Sweet Pea says, turning his present over in his hands. “Hot Dog wants walking.”

“And Melody just texted me saying that the search party has moved on to Greendale, so it’s safe for me to crash at her place tonight,” says Josie.

“I’ll give you a ride,” says Fangs, getting to his feet remarkably fast.

Josie looks him up and down, then raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”

That leaves Jughead with Veronica, Betty and Archie.

“Monopoly?” says Archie.

“Only if I can be the top hat,” says Jughead quickly.

“Bagsy the iron,” says Betty.

“We need another die,” says Veronica.

Jughead knows FP keeps a couple in the kitchen cupboard, for easy access when he’s in the mood for losing some money, and gets up to get one. In the kitchen, someone has hung the mistletoe from the fairy lights in the ceiling, and underneath the sprig are Cheryl and Toni, taking full advantage of it.

“Oh my god, get a room,” says Jughead, half turned away, squinting uncomfortably.

Toni, her lips still glued to Cheryl’s pulls Cheryl by the strap of her dress towards the door with one hand while flipping Jughead off with the other. Cheryl slams the door on their way out, and Jughead dreads to think what the two of them might get up to before the night is over.

“Coming, Jug?” says Archie from the living room.

Veronica is the first to go bankrupt, and she takes the loss in stride, moving into the kitchen to check on the eggnog levels. Through an unholy combination of bad luck with cards and dice alike, Archie spends an inordinate amount of time in jail, and once he’s out he gets stuck in Jughead’s stretch of hotels. It’s not long before he too leaves the table and starts looking for the guitar again, leaving Jughead and Betty to battle it out. In the end, she makes some strange decisions, and he suspects she’s _letting_ him win. He lets her let him.

 

* * *

 

 

Much later, when it’s just the two of them, sitting outside, watching the stars, it occurs to Jughead that he’s happy. He’s spent the whole evening clutching his beanie in frustration and bafflement, sighing as often as possible, rolling his eyes and groaning more than average, but it’s undeniable. He feels _happy_.

“Aren’t you going to open that?” asks Betty, looking at the small box in his hands.

It’s tied with a golden ribbon, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to just pull on one end and be done with the mystery.

“Nah,” he says, putting it back in his pocket. Maybe he’ll save it for a time when he needs it more than now, he thinks.

“It’s getting cold,” says Betty, getting up and dusting her jeans off. “Are you coming?”

“In a minute,” he says.

Once he’s alone, he takes Joaquin’s sparkler out. He lights it, and watches it crackle and spit for a few moments before drawing a glowing crown against the star-sprinkled midnight sky.

 

* * *

 

In other parts of Riverdale, gifts _are_ being opened.

Outside Thornhill, Cheryl is reluctantly getting off Toni’s bike. She doesn’t seem to want to go inside at all, Toni thinks. Toni knows that feeling.

“What did you get? For your gift?” Cheryl asks this possibly just to delay going up the steps.

Toni humors her, and tears open the golden envelope she had been left with. It’s a gift card, for a four-day extended, all inclusive weekend for two at the Sunrise By the Sea Spa, down by the beach. Included is a membership card giving her free access to the pool and gym for a year. Because Toni is not one for dramatic displays of emotion, she simply raises an eyebrow.

“Hey, Ariel,” she says to Cheryl. “Wanna hit the spa?”

On the other side of town, Fangs Fogarty is unwrapping his gift. It’s a cookbook with, as the dust jacket states, _one-hundred and fifty easy gourmet meals to prepare from scratch_ , and a three-month subscription to a weekly shopping bag from an exclusive grocery store on the Northside. _Delivers to any address within ten miles_ , he reads.

He puts the cookbook next to his only other book, which happens to also be a cookbook, only that one is for anarchists and not aristocrats.

On his bed in the drafty attic above the Bodega, Sweet Pea unwraps his present. He picks it up, and studies it with a frown. He taps it, turns it this way and that, then gets his phone out.

“Toni? Yeah, it’s me. Hey, what did you get? You know, in the gift game. Uh-huh… Uh-huh… Shit, not bad. Do you think I could…? Ok, sure, it’s fine, I understand. Can I ask who…? _What?_ The redhead? _Christ_. You do you, I suppose… Yeah, I got one in the end. These rich people are high as fuck, I swear. You get a luxury spa weekend, that vixen of yours got a fork and I end up with some kind of extravagant Easter egg...”


End file.
